[Loki]

Pops’ “New Attitude” thread reminded me of the fact that the active posters on PO.com appear to be almost exclusively male. There are a handful women left (WildRose, RedStateGreen, ???), but they are rare exceptions.

What gives?

I know the Planning forum used to have a lot more women (Smallpoxgirl, Shanny, Ludi, Blu, et al.), but that was back in the good ol’ days. Maybe women are less interested in the other aspects of the site that have taken over (economy, energy wonkery, US politics, etc.)?

I’ve also noticed that roughly 99.99% of the active posters appear to be engineers of some type or another. Is this lack of women typical of the engineering world? Maybe that has something to do with it.

[Ferretlover]

??? = Ferretlover
As to the male - female ratio here, I have no idea why it is what it is .

[dolanbaker]

and there's me thinking this thread was about Bratwurst!

[Loki]

Sorry FL, I thought of you after I hit the post button.

As for bratwurst, that's a thread for later, I do actually want to make sausage next fall.

[SeaGypsy]

You can add Tanada and Pstarr to your list, not sure about others off the top of my head.

[dinopello]

There's not many female peakers but they are sexy as all get out.

[SeaGypsy]

You can add Tanada and Pstarr to your list, not sure about others off the top of my head.

huh? I'm sure that is a sausage down there. Not the bearded clam

Oops P, I read you saying you 'Had no Jizz' in you?

[PrestonSturges]

and there's me thinking this thread was about Bratwurst!

I like bratwurst..... oh, you mean penises!

I was in Berlin in the spring and I got to order spargle and the weinersnitchel, but we missed the Love Parade, which is not a sausage fest.

[BasilBoy]

What gives?

Perhaps it's because the board is horribly moderated and the goons have taken over. Women tend not to want to hang with goons...

[PrestonSturges]

There's not many female peakers but they are sexy as all get out.

Well we grade on a curve here. It's like America's McCurdo Sound base in Antarctica. On a scale of one to ten, an Anarctica "seven" has a pulse. This applies to both men and women.

[steam_cannon]

Men and women are different. There I said it, let the shaming begin. That said...

Culture:
I'll start of with an example in the workplace in America. At work lunchin's at one company I worked at, the women would actively try to dis-include the men and cluster together into a tight knit social herd. These are very smart women and no offense is intended, but they would spend the whole time discussing sales at JCPenny's, children, who's dating who, omg can you believe so-in-so did that and fashion. The men would then sit at the last table and talk about budgets, the us-economy, wars, company strategies, market trends for our business and occasionally sports. As I said, these women are smart and certainly capable of thinking about these other things, but they didn't seem to be interested in these things.

Human evolution:
If you put a female and male child behind a barrier, female children cry and male children try to break it down. These are not trained responses but responses that are the result the evolution of our species. The way I see it, humanity has a long history and did a lot of evolving along the way. What we have here is the influence of 100,000 years of human evolution playing out. Hunters and gatherers, hunting requires a lot of analysis and seeking behavior be it seeking experience or counting spear points. Child rearing can require a lot of obsessing over details, seeking mates in different tribes and gathering in groups requires a lot of social wrangling.

These different requirements in life have caused differing preferences that resulted in success as well as societal conflict and genetic diseases that are more likely to effect one sex or the other, like anxiety disorders and autism. Or how for humans who moved to colder climates, winter depression helped keep them inside in the winter, now winter depression is a disease. But natural preferences and even diseases are usually adaptations by species to survive. And that's what I see playing out at that lunch described above. These evolved patterns may not work anymore, but they are still there. I'm not saying men should oppress women or anything like that, but I am saying there are natural patterns still playing out.

Genetics of the extremes:
Genetically XY vs XX, there is no backup genes for men which means that if there is a genetic problem it expresses it's downside or upside more readily. This cleanses the gene pool for both X and Y and is probably why the IQ bell curve has more men at the high and low end of it. Regarding peak oil, people seek it out when they have a preference for situational analysis and the IQ to understand some of the math and concepts discussed regarding peak oil. So it's a subject that's bound to attract a lot of smart people and a few real yahoos, people at the extremes. So people at the extremes with a nature or reason for analyzing problems in society.

More men are suffering:
In the US, there are few social programs for Men, lack of shelters for men, harsher laws, higher legal costs and compulsory military signups. Psychologically this all adds up and means men are more likely to be worried about jobs, war, what we're fighting for like oil and other long term problems the country might have. In my area many schools have female only mentoring programs and educational funding, with no equal available to males. I don't know if the whole country is like that, but there is an obvious lack of attention being given to educating young men. In this recession, the focus of many job creation programs has been purposely for women due to lobbying by organizations like NOW. Possibly because of both lobbying and education trends, most of the unemployed are men. Whatever the reason, this is more so then other recessions which is why some people are calling this a mancession. Economic problems and job stress for men are bound to cause more men to search for answers.

[Keith_McClary]

You can add Tanada and Pstarr to your list, not sure about others off the top of my head.

huh? I'm sure that is a sausage down there. Not the bearded clam

Or an Oyster with earmuffs?

Today's Dilbert - always relevant.

[Anvil]

Most of the woman i know are pretty optimistic and light headed about the future or just dont want to talk about it. This forum tends interfere with the closed belief system that tomorrow will be better than to day. That most woman buy into either that or they are all on face book discussing what to ware or gossiping.

[Sixstrings]

I know the Planning forum used to have a lot more women (Smallpoxgirl, Shanny, Ludi, Blu, et al.), but that was back in the good ol’ days. Maybe women are less interested in the other aspects of the site that have taken over (economy, energy wonkery, US politics, etc.)?

Here's what I recollect. If my memory is wrong, my apologies.

Smallpoxgirl left the forum over an abortion thread. She personally knew a doctor that was murdered, some posters were very insensitive and that was that -- she said she was leaving and she never posted again.

Shanny.. I think that was a dispute with ReverseEngineer, I don't remember, it was some king of forum schism though and she started her own site.

Ludi.. I miss Ludi.. I may have had a part in her departure, I'm always nice but I do question people and anyhow either me or somebody else or me and others in general pushed her too far and she said she was quitting and that was that hasn't posted since.

Blu.. don't remember.. was she Russian? I remember a Russian that somebody was rude to and he / she left.

So there's your answer. The forum had some women, but they were driven off by the uncivil attitude around here. As for economics, there's a poster who very rarely posts but knows what's she's talking about -- Floridagirl. Otherwise women don't seem interested in the global derivative timebomb and the latest news that the ECB is doing margin calls (sounds doomy, need to read more on that).

[careinke]

Ludi.. I miss Ludi.. I may have had a part in her departure, I'm always nice but I do question people and anyhow either me or somebody else or me and others in general pushed her too far and she said she was quitting and that was that hasn't posted since.

Ludi is doing fine over on the Permies.com board where the board rule is simple, "Be Nice". She is into hugelkulture as most of her fruit trees died from drought. She has a thread of her own showing her permie projects.

http://www.permies.com/t/11215/permaculture/Ludi-permaculture-projects

I was inspired and started my own thread there.

http://www.permies.com/t/12804/permaculture/Cliff-permaculture-projects

I like the site because it is a treasure trove of people experimenting hands on with permaculture principles and concepts. Also, unlike this site, they are way more positive about permaculture.

I like both sites, just for different reasons.

[ian807]

I'm pretty sure the women aren't focused on reading about peak oil, but on what they can do, personally to prepare. Gardening and putting in rainwater collection systems doesn't leave a lot of time for chatting on PO boards.

[vision-master]

The LENR thread is a classic example of said 'Sausage Fest'.

Most 'normal' ppl look at this thread and say 'what the fook is wrong with ppl here'.

I've posted about LENR on other foums and ppl respond in a curious fashion - not here. Are you ppl off your rockers?

[Revi]

I guess it's true. There are a few women, but most of us are males.